Sushi style Hong shao Rou—Su style red braised pork belly. Hong shao or red-braising or red-cooking, is methods of cooking meats or vegetables with soy sauce, sugar and sometimes other spices. I have introduced Maoshi red braised pork belly previously and this style is mild Sushi without chili and spices.
There are many varieties of Hongshao Rou. Every house cook might have her own recipe. This is a clay pot recipe I made most of times with 100% successful rate. Just remove from the stove.
One of the skillful steps is to stir fry the brown sugar. We call this as sugar color sauce, which can help to provide a slightly caramel flavor and deep caramelized color. The simplified version is to use dark soy sauce to add the color and add the brown sugar directly into your wok. But the simplified version will lose the caramel flavor.
Firstly cut the pork belly into cubes, rinse in boiling water for 1 minute. Then sauté until both sides becomes slightly brown. Transfer out (to a clay pot or a plate).
And here we begin to stir fry the sugar caramelized color. Put the brown sugar in wok to stir fry until all the sugar melts and you can see large bubbles. Keep stirring in the process. Turn off the fire and add warm water to make the sauce. Be careful when pouring the water in. Pour the caramelized sugar sauce into the pot.
Then you can choose to simmer the pork cubes in clay pot or just in the wok. Simmer for around 45 minutes and turn up the fire for thickening the sauce. After around 1 hour, here we are. Garnish some chopped green onion and sever hot!
Is the caramelized color beautiful?
- 500 g pork belly , cut into cubes around 2 inches
- 1 tbsp. cooking wine
- 4 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. brown sugar , broken if you have large pieces
- 2 inches ginger , cut into slices
- 4 green onions , 1 finely chopped for garnish and the left into long sections
- hot water to cover the pork cubes , as needed
- oil for brushing , optional if you are using iron wok
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Clean and cut the pork belly into cubes around 2 inches long.
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Boil a large pot of water, add cooking wine, 2 slices of ginger and 2 green onions, cook the pork belly for around 4 minutes. Transfer out and wash with warm water. Set aside and drain.
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Add green onion and ginger slices in a clay pot and pre-heat it on a stove.
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Then on another stove, heat up wok on medium fire; brush some oil on the bottom. Sautee the pork belly until the surface becomes slightly brown. Transfer the pork cubes to our pre-heat clay pot.
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Put the brown sugar in wok to stir fry until all the sugar melts and you can see large bubbles. Keep stirring during the process. Pour hot water to cover the pork cubes. Mix well!
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Transfer the sugar mixture to the clay pot with pork belly or return the pork belly into your wok. Add light soy sauce too.
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Bring all the content to a boiling and then lower the fire to simmer for around 45 minutes with the lid covered.
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Lift the lid and turn up the fire to thicken the sauce (around 15 minutes). Stop when you see the sauce is boiling strongly with large bubbles and almost thickened. Cool down a little bit and the sauce will fatherly thicken itself.
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Garnish some chopped green onion before serving.
Be careful when you pour hot water to the sugar sauce. But you need to pour all the water once quickly without hesitation.
gonna have to give this a try
That will be a paying off choice, John. Good luck and happy cooking ahead.
My red braised dishes (made with dark soy) are always brown (like the soy) and not red. Do you know why? Would cartelizing the sugar and using light soy be red?
Hi Jmk,
For a brighter red color, using sugar and light soy sauce. Dark soy sauce will spoil the color.
I’ve tried a few different 红烧肉 recipes and this one is the best! The caramelized sugar with soy sauce creates the perfect sauce for the pork belly. Each piece was tender and deep red, just like the photos. I can’t wait to make this again! Do you have any suggestions for how to make crispy pork belly without an oven? I read your Crispy Pork Belly recipe and by the end my mouth was watering, but then I realized I needed an oven. Any ideas? Thanks for the authentic recipes and helping me improve my Chinese cooking!
Hi there, tried your recipe except that I halved the ingredients. At about 25 mins mark while simmering the sugared pork belly, the pork belly got charred n tasted tough. I had to forgo the whole dish as it was too burnt (and dark). Any idea what could have gone wrong? One thing that cross my mind could be too much brown sugar used.
Hi Rei,
In order to prevent the pork belly getting burnt, you will need to stir them occasionally especially in the later half time. And remember to use the slowest fire.
I had the same problem. Used low fire & stirred it every 10 min. but it got burnt at about 25 min mark.
Hi Chua,
I believe it might be caused by the amount of hot water. 1 cup might be not enough.
Hi, do I need to transfer green onion, ginger and oil from the wok into the clay pot when cooking the pork? Im a bit confused with step 3
Thank you
Sorry Jessica,
I do not make myself understood. Firstly you need to heat up a clay pot with green onion and ginger slices on another stove.
Hello Elaine
I just found your site!!!! ……
I have been making Asian food for many years now….( I am Irish-American ) …However your recipes sound/taste so authentic that I will most likely end up as round in the belly as Buddha !
Thank you as many times as there are stars in the sky….. May you have good luck and prosper…… and a special thank you to your Mother & Grandmother….as I learned how to cook from both of my Grandmothers ….I have found that they are the most important ingredient in any good cooks pantry!
Sincerely PaulM
That’s rule. I own all my yummy dishes to my mother and grandmother. They told me so many important tips in their daily cooking and more importantly motivate me to enjoy cooking and food creation.
I am glad that you love this Paul. Happy cooking!
We made this recipe yesterday and oh! was it yummy! We added some cinnamon, star anise and chili to the sugar as we had seen that in some other recipes.
I think this sentence is a little hard to understand: “Put the brown sugar in wok to stir fry until all the sugar melts and you can see large bubbles. Keep stirring during the process. Pour hot water to cover the pork cubes. Mix well!”
Maybe someone else also has some problems so here is my interpretation: “… Let the brown sugar caramelize and keep stirring during the process. Add the hot water you used for cooking the meat into the wok so that it will cover the pork cubes you’ll add later. Mix well!” Hope that I understood it correctly. For us it worked this way 🙂
Next project: Gua Bao (Taiwanese Pork Belly Buns). Already looking forward to it!
Thanks Janina for the wonderful feedback. I hope you like Gua Bao too. Gua Bao will be much easier after a successful Hong Shao Rou.
I followed the recipe and after 1 hr, there was still way too much water. Is there a rule of thumb regarding how much of the pork to cover with water or is 2 cups always necessary. Thanks,
Hi Dewey,
The water evaporation depends on lots of factors including the cookware and the heat. When you open the lid and turn up the fire, the evaporation process will speed up. If there is still too much, you just need to slightly lengthen the process.
Usually I keep the pork cubes around 4/5 covered. I hope this helps. Happy cooking!
Wonderful edition to fried rice, I made this in preparation for the fried rice I was making and it came out beautifully tender, a few tips for the ingredients I found was instead of saying 4 tablespoons of soy sauce you could say 1/4th cup it takes less time to measure out also instead of 500g you could say 1lb or 16oz, not that it matters that much just thought it would be easier to follow, thank you for the delicious recipe!
Looks so delicious.. Thank you for sharing this mouth watering recipe.
Hi,
I doubled this recipe and ended up having a brown sauce rather than red. I’m not sure where I went wrong.
I carmalized the brown sugar, added enough water that it would cover all the pork, then transferred the carmalized brown sugar “sauce” to a Dutch oven with the pork. I then simmered for 45 minutes. It stayed brown the entire time. At what point should the sauce turn red?
Taste was great though!
Jason,
You need to continue thickening the sauce with very slow fire.
Is it possible to use rock sugar instead of brown sugar?
Yes, rock sugar works fine too.
I did this recipe this evening but the sauce was either too thick or too oily… And I didn’t have the same color as you, I think it’s because I used brown sugar from cane? Also, I did use a medium red oignon since I didn’t have green ones… maybe the sauce was too thick because of that? shame!
Added an anis star + one clove too. Was super delicious anyway!
Eva,
The most possible reason is that your pork belly is slightly over-heated in the searing process. If it comes too oily, you can pour the extra oil out and continue with further steps.
The color can be influenced by the sugar and the soy sauce. If possible, tag me a photo on INS.
I had already eaten everything when I saw your picture. I think the soy sauce is too dark but I can’t buy too many products in my small flat. Could I put less soy sauce and a little bit of salt instead?
I actually forgot to sear it… But maybe I waited too long for my sauce to reduce.
I’ve just found your recipes I will try them and let you know how I get on thank you.
Thank you Robert! Happy cooking!